Week 2

Camilla trusts me enough to leave Helen with me for two hours while she does a mammoth shopping trip to Tesco/Mothercare/Boots. (Good timing on that, as the snow then came in for the weekend.)

Had the health visitor, the midwife and the painter in the house all at once, so it may be a good thing the handyman didn't show up as well.

We do our first trip outside with Helen, taking her to the Magic Cafe in the pram. There she meets her cousins.

our front yard in the snow

five-fold symmetry? must be an echinoderm!

The central heating plus one gas fire are keeping the house at a comfy (for me) 20 or so. Except for the kitchen, which is around 13 and can go as low as 10, and the upstairs study which we're not bothering to heat. (We will heat it if it's in use as a guest room, though, don't worry!) Camilla has reverted from pregnancy thermoregulation - wandering around the house in a t-shirt, complaining it was too hot - back to her more normal state, where she's always cold.

Nappy changed, baby fed, tea and porridge to Camilla in bed, coffee and porridge for myself, laundry washed and hung, painter doing the last bits and pieces, almost time to cycle carefully to work.

Definitely safer cycling than walking, as the main roads are completely clear and the car treads on the back roads are too, but the pavements are deathtraps. Lots of people walking on the roads.

Camilla takes the baby to a work meeting. Though she's on maternity leave and not supposed to be working.

The comfy recliner chair I ordered has arrived, but I am being foiled by the very last step of the assembly instructions.

I go to a gamelan rehearsal while Camilla attends our last National Childbirth Trust ante-natal class - which in her case has turned into a post-natal class. (One of the other women has also had her twins, but they were born at 28 weeks and are still in special care.)